PLEASE READ
A/N: okay just a few quick notes. First, thanks so much to my beta for helping me with this story you're great!. second, I'm making a lot of this medical on the job stuff up so if something seams off I am sorry, just send me a pm and let me know I will fix it. Also, I want to apologize for taking so long to update this I just got temporary custody of my sisters two kids again one ia a year old and one is three so now I have three kids under the age of three to take care of and it is almost impossible to find time to write. Tho only time I can is late at night and by then I just want to sleep while my 6 month old does. The next couple months updates might be kind of short and far apart. But I'm not giving up. Please don't give up on me. Thanks in advance to those of you who understand. And lastly please review and let me know what you think of the chapter!
P.S. Obviously my A/n wasn't beta'd sorry about that
P.S.S sorry that this 'quick' a/n turned out so long anyway. On with the story...:D
Partners
Chapter 12
(Emily)
As Derek and I enter the doors of the emergency room, the smell of blood and antiseptic overwhelms our senses and the sound of cries from both children and adults fill the air. Doctors and nurses are rushing back and forth. The whole scene is complete chaos.
"Should we split up or..." I trail off and look at Derek, who is quietly observing our surroundings as if trying to find the best plan of action. "How do you want to do this?"
"Honestly, if we split up, one of us will probably get lost." He grins slightly at me before continuing. "We need to find the person in charge and go from there."
"Sounds good." I nod in agreement and we begin surveying the room. I notice a short redheaded woman holding a clip board about twenty feet away. It appears like she is ordering a couple of nurses around. ;That's who we need', I tell myself. "Over there." I gently nudge Derek to get his attention and point toward the woman I just saw. He looks over to where I am pointing and motions for me to follow him as he begins to walk toward the woman; I follow silently.
The woman look up as we approach and scowls at us. "Reporters are to stay outside." she points to the doors and turns away. Derek looks at me his eyebrow raised comically. I just shrug and smile in response. He shake his head and walks purposefully toward the woman's retreating back I follow his lead and do the same.
"Excuse me, ma'am." he testily taps the woman on the shoulder when he catches up with her.
"What?" she spits out impatiently and whips her head around. " I said rep.." she begins but I cut her off.
"We know what you said, ma'am." I flash her my badge with quick jerky motions. Her attitude was really starting to get to me. It didn't help that traffic on the way here was bumper to bumper, and it was 100 degrees out. We had turned on the siren but it had been useless. What should have been a ten minute drive had turned into a half an hour. "My partner, Detective Morgan, and I are here about this afternoons shooting. We need to see the survivors that were brought in and get their statements. So, if it's not to much to ask, could you please pull the stick out of your ass and point us in the right direction." By the time I am finished with my little rant my voice had raised slightly and Derek is grinning at me. The nurse has and enraged look on here face. The clipboard in her hand is shaking a little telling me that I had made her so mad her hands were shaking. A small smile creeps onto my face and I mentally give myself a little round of applause.
"Those patients were moved into the critical care unit. Need to go through those doors and straight down the hall. It's the last door on the left." She grinds out, pointing us in the right direction. Once that is done, she storms off and leaves me and Derek standing alone in the middle of the busy room.
"Feel better now?" Derek looks down at me I can tell he is trying to hold in his laughter.
"Shut up and let's go." I wipe the smile off my face and head in the direction the stupid cranky nurse had pointed us in. I hear Derek's footsteps behind me and take a deep breath. I really did feel better.
(Derek)
I smile to myself as I follow Emily down the hall. The way she had told off that nurse was impressive, sexy even. I'd really hate to be on her bad side. I smirk while secretly admiring the sway of her hips. Or at least so I thought.
"Derek, will you please stop staring at my ass?" she requests with out even turning around. Damn. How did she do that?
I shake my head and follow her as she steps through the doors of the CCU. A small blonde doctor meets us once the doors had shut behind us. By this point, Emily and I were standing side by side. I quietly convey to her that I had this and turn to the doctor.
"Hi, Detectives Morgan and Prentiss. We're here to get statements from the victims of the shooting; we were told they were brought here." I explain, at the mention of our names, both Emily and I had flashed our badges. The young doctor's smile turns to a frown as I finish.
"Of course." she nods understandingly. "Follow me and I can give you an update on the situation." At her request, we follow her as she leads us into one of the small waiting rooms. Once there both Emily and I take a seat across from the doctor. Emily takes out her note pad and begins taking notes on what the doctor has to say. "Sorry about that; it's just this is a little more private, with the families going in and out I didn't want to panic any one." the doctor explains.
"We understand, thank you." Emily reassures her with a slight smile.
"Eighteen patients were brought in, and it isn't looking good. So far, eight of those have died - three before they reached the hospital and the other five shortly after they arrived. The shock of their injuries and the blood loss was just to much."
"What about the other ten?" I interrupt.
"Five of then are in emergency surgery. The injuries of the remaining five weren't as severe. A couple of them were still in shock so we had to sedate them. But if you're looking to get statements, you want to talk to" she pauses and looks down at the chart in her hand."Brian Johnson in room 362, or Annabelle Davis in, uh, room 370. They received fairly minor injuries and are currently resting. We'll move them later this afternoon once things slow down a little." She finishes without even looking up.
"Great! Is there someone we can see about getting the name's and information on the rest of the victims?" Emily asks from beside me just as the doctors pager begins to beep. She checks it before answering Emily.
"If you ask the nurse at the information desk located right down the hall, she can print that information out for you. I'm sorry, I have to go tend to one of the shooting victim. I'll try to get back to you later. Is there anything else?" she answers with a sense of urgency.
"No, that's all, thank you." I reply and she politely excuses herself.
Emily and I follow her out of the room moments later and head the direction of the patient rooms. We are about to arrive at the first one when the sound of someone flat-lining catches my attention. I pause to look and see what's going on. The doctor we were just talking to is in the room trying to revive the patient. I realize with a jolt that I knew the patient. No, I try to reassure myself, this isn't happening. Without even thinking I storm into the room, leaving a very confused Emily standing in the hall.
When I enter the room, no one even notices. I watch for a few minutes at they try to bring him back. The dread builds in my gut, increasing with each passing second. Finally, one of the nurses notices me and shoos me out. I meet back up with Emily who hadn't moves from her spot in the hall, standing there with a very confused look on her beautiful face.
(Emily)
When Derek finally comes out of the room he had walked into, his face is pale and his fists are clenched at his sides. My gut tells me to leave him be and follow his lead but my curiosity gets the better of me.
"What was that about?" I ask him. His dark eyes find mine and just stare as if he was trying to burn holes in them.
"Later." He spits out tersely and starts walking down the hall to our original destination.
The first room we come to is Brian Johnson's room. He stares at us as we walk in. I notice his left arm is up in a sling and the slight cut on his cheek. We introduce ourselves to him and he agrees to give his statement, after explaining his injuries. He tells us that he really didn't see anything he was busy trying to protect his wife. Tears form in his eyes as he mentions her. He continues saying that she had been 7 months pregnant with their first child, but that she had died before the ambulance had even got there. He also mentions that he thought the guy was white about 6 ft and that he seen a black Jeep Grand Cherokee pull into the restaurant a few minutes before the shooting started. We thank him and Derek gives him his card telling him to call if he can think of anything else.
The next interview with Annabelle Davis goes pretty much the same, only this time she had been shot in the abdomen, as well as sustaining a few cuts and scrapes from the broken glass. She tells us that the shooter was white, showed up in a black SUV and that he had a tattoo of a leprechaun on the inside of his right forearm. She also mentions that a black man had been driving the SUV. I give her my card and thank her before Morgan and I excuse our selves. Up to this point he hadn't really said anything. Even though he was obviously worried, he didn't let that keep him from doing his job well or from keeping his focus while getting witness statements. I try not to worry but it is so much harder then it seems. Once we are in the hall he leans against the wall an scrubs his hand over his face. His worry I etched all over it.
"Why don't you go check on that guy." I suggest gently placing a reassuring hand on his arm. I know that he really wanted to find out what was going on."I'm going to go get more patient information from the information desk, and call Gideon to update him." Derek nods in agreement and we go our separate ways.
It take the woman at the desk 25 minutes to print a simple piece of paper, which really ate at my nerves. I wasn't having the best experience with nurses today. Once the paper is in my hand, I find an empty corner and call Gideon. I inform him on the conditions of the survivors, and about statements we had got. He tells me to head back to the station and that a patrol cop would be sent to check on the people still in surgery. When I hang up, I turn around and Derek is standing at most eight inches away from me. I hadn't expected him to be there; his presence makes me jump about a foot in the air. This in turn makes him crack a smile. I glare at him a little, then relay Gideon's words. We are getting into the car ten minutes later when Derek speaks up.
"Thanks for letting me go back" He says quietly. I didn't hesitate.
"No problem, you needed it. Was everything okay when you went back? You don't seem so tense." I observe.
"He was still alive, so that's good." I could tell that Derek was very relieved by this piece of information.
"Who is he?" I turn my head toward Derek in curiosity. By this time, the traffic had died down a little, at least back to it's normal pace for 4:30, almost 5, in the afternoon.
"Frank Jordan, my fathers partner." He explains. "After my dad died, Frank would come around, take me to baseball games, help my mom out around the house. We were pretty close, then I left for college and we just drifted apart."
"I'm sorry." I tell him, not really knowing what else to say. The rest of the car ride is pretty silent. One of us would make a comment here and there but not much. We pull into the station and notice Gideon's car right off the bat. Obviously he had returned to talk to us.
When we walk into the squad room, he steps out of his office and calls us up. We explain the witness statements in more detail and that Frank Jordan had also been a victim. He takes offense to this since he had known Frank personally as well. He tells us to run the description of driver and car through the computer. He also explains that he would be in his office reviewing security footage and to come up if we got anything.
When we get to our desks, we agree that Derek would begin looking for a match on the tattoo and I would try to find a person matching the description we got to a black Grand Cherokee.
Two hours later, the searches are still running and Derek and I are working on paper work while at the same time carrying on a conversation about how our friends were doing. He informs me about Dave and Aaron's latest case and about little Jack's upcoming birthday party. I tell him how the girls are doing and about the date Jen and Dave had last night. His surprise at the news makes me laugh. As I'm laughing his computer beeps indicating a match in his search. Both of our heads shoot to his computer at the sound our previous conversation forgotten.
"We got two matches: George Foyet and Carl Arnold. Both in their early thirties. Foyet was charged with assault on minor in '06. If he was our guy, his prints would have popped. Refine your search to Carl Arnold; I think we have our guy." he smiles at me. Little does he know I am one step ahead of him. I had already refined the search to look for the names out of the thousands of hits I had already got. My computer beeps a few seconds later, a match to Carl Arnold.
"Got it!, Carl Arnold the proud owner of a 2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee." I exclaim. We both print our results and head into Gideon's office. He looks up as we enter. We quickly explain what we found, the three of us start to search the security footage for any sign of our suspect. After about fifteen minutes, Derek spots him on one of the tapes and points him out. After that Gideon makes a call to a judge and gets an arrest warrant. Once the warrant is secure one of the patrol units that is already out looking for witnesses goes to pick him up.
Gideon congratulates us and sends us home. It was already almost 10:30 and it had been a long day. He assures us that he would handle the Arnold interrogation personally and not to worry about anything. We thank him and go grab our stuff from our desks shutting down our computers at the same time. Minutes later we are walking in the parking garage.
"Hey Derek, you want come by my place? We can order takeout and watch a movie or something." I call out to him.
"Sure, I'm gonna run home and change first. I'll bring the food with me when I get there." Derek readily agrees. We both get into our cars with smiles on our faces.
Sure enough, true to his word, he knocks on my door 40 minutes later, a bag of Chinese food in hand. He had gone and changed into a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt. I smile at the sight of him, and let him in. We watch The Next Three Days while we eat. After the movie is over, we sit around just relaxing sharing stories from our childhood and drinking a beer. Finally, when the clock strike three, I kiss Derek good bye and he heads home since we both had to work at 8:00 the next morning. I go to bed in a good mood. It is not long before I fall asleep, the long day having caught up with me.
